Half Life 3 confirmed
by StupidSequel
Summary: Half Life 3 has finally been confirmed for a May 3014 release, but by then all the people who still care about what happens next are gone, except for Fry. He takes the game back to his time only to find himself in the middle of a massive game of keep away against gamer nerds who are passing the only copy around to play through it and spoiling every plot twist.


**Half Life 3 confirmed**

"Good news everyone," Farnsworth greeted the Planet Express crew with his catch phrase. "Half Life 3 has finally been announced."

"Yay. Wait, there was a second Half Life game?" Fry cheered and then asked.

"Indeed," Farnsworth continued. "According to the museum of ancient technology, the second Half Life game didn't come out until after you were frozen. 2004, in fact. After that, it spawned 2 short, episodic mini sequels instead of a proper third installment, with the second one ending on a cliff hanger, which the third installment will resolve somehow. After 2007, which was when episode 2 came out, fans waited a long long time for a third installment to even be announced but it never came to be, which actually caused a Civil War in the US, apparently inspired by the YouTube users vs. Google+ Civil War that ended a few years earlier. The third installment is coming out May 2nd, 3014, long after the last of the people who actually cared about what happens to Gordon Freeman next died." Fry narrowed his eyes, then widened them again.

"Omigosh, today is April 30th!" Fry gasped. "I wanna buy it the day it comes out but I also don't wanna be confused about any of the plot points."

"Then you'd better hurry," Farnsworth suggested. Fry sat down at the computer and started up Half Life 2. 15 hours later he had just gotten to Route Kanal, stuck on the infamous train glitch. "I don't have time to play through this the legit way. Time to bring in the cheat codes. All I care about is the story, to an extent." Fry opened the developer's console and enabled god mode, impulse 101, and no-clip. He used the super gravity gun on Combine soldiers and other various enemies.

When he finally finished Half Life 2 a few hours later, Fry stretched and yawned.

"No time to rest!" Farnsworth scolded urgently. "You still need to get through episodes 1 and 2, and you have 5 hours until episode 3 releases!"

"Kay kay!" Fry used the same cheat codes he used on HL2 to get through the insanely short episode 1, and then when he got through episode 2, he wept at the ending cutscene cuz it was so sad, and he only had about 10 seconds to spare.

"Start the countdown," Farnsworth ordered. The following scene was pretty much exactly like the countdown scene to the year 2000 right before Fry fell in the cryogenic tube.

After it got to one, they rushed to Gamestop, expecting it to be packed, hence the cowcatcher that Farnsworth duct-taped to Fry's waist. It was actually nearly empty except for the crew and the employees, and yet there was Half Life 3 for the Xbox 359 on the shelves.

"Why is it so empty?" Fry asked in a worrying tone.

"Probably because the people who still care about the Half Life series went extinct. I guess Valve waited a little too long."

"Am I the only one in the year 3014 that even cares about what happens after the cliff hanger ending of episode 2?"

"Probably," Amy said.

When they got home, Fry copied the game on a flash drive. Unfortunately the overly advanced DRM made the flash drive unusable.

"NOOOOO!" Fry screamed bloody murder. He started up the HL3 game, amazed by the graphics that looked exactly like a live action sequence and the 8K resolution.

"It just isn't the same without the enthusiasm."

Fry took the HL3 game and the Xbox 359 into the time machine that only goes forwards, looped around to the beginning of time, and got off in the year 2014.

"Valve promised us a third installment, and we have not one, still." Some random gamer who was one of Fry's friends moaned. Fry produced the Half Life 3 copy from his back pocket. Fry's friend looked at him as if he had grown another head.

"WHERE DID YOU GET THAT?" He demanded. "And is this even real?" Fry's friend was slightly skeptical. "Gimme that! I need to play it since I finished episode 2 in 2007 and still care about what happens to Gordon next." Before Fry even got a chance to play it at all, Fry's friend popped it in his Xbox One. Good thing it was backwards compatible.

After a good chunk of time later, Fry called his friend because he just remembered something.

"Finklestein, this is the only copy, so I need it back-" Fry reminded him, but before he could finish his sentence, Fry's random friend beat the game and threw down the controller in frustration. "SERIOUSLY? This had better be a joke! I waited seven long years for a proper conclusion to the Half Life series and this was NOT WORTH THE WAIT! This is worse than E.T. for the Atari 2600! Don't get me wrong, I like the story, and I cried when (insert major huge HL3 spoiler) but THE GRAPHICS ARE NOT REALISTIC ENOUGH! They look too cartoony and potato! Graphics are more important than gameplay and story. If Super Mario Brothers had ultra-realistic 4K graphics, I MIGHT be able to enjoy it. I like how (more HL3 spoilers.)." Fry hung up before Finklestein could spoil any more of Half Life 3.

"Great. I really wanted to play this game but he snatched it from me and spoiled the biggest plot twists."

Finklestein posted on Tumblr his IRL phone number and street address and a picture of him holding up the Half Life 3 box.

He passed the game around to someone else in the neighborhood, and anyone who wasn't that person he passed it to got real pissed. It was hailed as the best video game in the history of existence, making Team Fortress 2 look like Crazy Bus. There were even competitions held for who got to play it next. At one point some fox hearted individuals decided to play keep away with Half Life 3, with Fry in the middle trying to catch it.

Eventually all the major Half Life 3 spoilers were as common knowledge and widespread as 'Luke, I am your father" and "The Titanic sinks." Only after that did they give the game back to Fry. He was also super tired of hearing about how awesome the game is and not getting to play it. So much, he actually did punch a baby.

Frustrated, Fry took the forwards only time machine back to the year 3014.

"Professor, do you have anything that can make me forget a specific thing in my brain?" Fry asked.

"Why yes, I do. Whatever for?" Farnsworth replied.

"Well, I went back to the past and several gaming nerds snatched the only copy of Half Life 3 and spoiled it to the core before I could even play past the intro. I wanna forget all the spoilers so I can play through it and be surprised at every plot twist."

"Just a sec." Farnsworth strapped Fry into a chair like device and a dome fitting over his head. Farnsworth flipped a switch.

"Why isn't it working? I still remember the Half Life 3 spoilers." Fry panicked.

"Interesting. It seems that your delta brain wave is preventing the machine from working correctly. While there still is a way to forget what you want to forget-"

"Do it." Fry urged. Farnsworth reluctantly flipped the adjacent switch.

When Fry woke up, he found that he didn't know his own name. "I think Half Life is a pretty cool guy. Eh kills aleins and doesn't afraid of anything." Fry had forgotten that the protagonist is Gordon Freeman and not Half Life as well as how to speak correct grammar. In fact, he had forgotten most of everything, but not absolutely everything.

Fry had to be enrolled in school. Again. It felt pretty awkward being an adult manchild as a student in a kindergarten classroom. And he was treated as a student too.

He got mostly poor to average grades, but after his second senior year, he felt smart enough. But he had forgotten all the events of the Half Life series and needed to play through them again.

As Fry was about to go into the forwards only time machine again, Farnsworth blocked his way, and then proceeded to douse it in gasoline and burn it down, possibly to prevent a repeat of the earlier events of this story.

Fry spent the next 18 hours playing Half Life 3 non-stop. When he beat the game, he ripped up the game disc and spat on it. "That was sooo anticlimactic and not worth the wait. Worse than E.T. for the Atari 2600 in fact, and more predictable than a My Little Pony episode or most Disney films. I get that Half Life 2 has got to be a tough act to follow, but AT LEAST TRY TO MAKE IT GOOD! Seriously, when will people learn that you shouldn't hide shitty gameplay behind mind-blowingly awesome graphics, expecting them to be the main selling point?"


End file.
